Shadow Broker

The Shadow Broker was an enigmatic figure at the head of an expansive organization that traded in information, always selling to the highest bidder. The Broker appeared highly competent at its trade: the secrets it bought and sold never allowed any one customer to gain a significant advantage, which forced clients to keep trading information to avoid falling behind and so kept the Broker in business. Its true identity was unknown to the public, and it always operated through agents. (Mass Effect; Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker)

A trade in secrets#

The Shadow Broker's identity was unknown to the general public, and the Broker always operated through an agent. The volus financier Barla Von, himself one of the Broker's agents, referred to the Broker as "he" for convenience but believed it was in fact a group of individuals, reasoning that no single being could monitor all the available information or wield such a wide sphere of influence. The genius of the operation lay in balance: by ensuring that no client ever held a decisive edge over another, the Broker compelled them to keep buying and selling, and so kept itself indispensable. (Mass Effect)

The organization's reach extended into events of great consequence. A data file proving that Saren Arterius had gone rogue was part of the reason Tali'Zorah came to the Citadel in 2183; too valuable to waste, she sought to trade it for safety through the club owner Fist, who worked for the Broker. When Fist betrayed his employer and changed his allegiance to Saren, the furious Broker hired the krogan Urdnot Wrex to assassinate him. (Mass Effect)

Recovering Shepard#

After the destruction of the original Normandy, the Shadow Broker was hired by the Collectors to retrieve Commander Shepard's body and deliver it to them. The Broker dispatched its personal enforcer, Tazzik, who recovered Shepard's remains from mercenaries on Omega despite the interference of Liara T'Soni and the drell agent Feron. When Liara and Feron followed Tazzik to the Broker's base on Alingon, they came face to face with the Broker, an obscure shadowy figure who communicated through a machine. (Mass Effect: Redemption)

Asked why it would sell Shepard to the Collectors, who might be working for the Reapers, the Broker answered simply that it was business and that it doubted the Collectors could gain anything from a corpse. While Feron downloaded the Broker's records of the deal, Liara unleashed a powerful display of biotics to disable the room's communications. Liara escaped with Shepard's body, but was forced to leave Feron behind in the Broker's hands. (Mass Effect: Redemption)

The pursuit and the truth#

In 2185 the Broker remained the object of Liara T'Soni's relentless pursuit, driven by Feron's continued captivity. Unknown to Liara, the Broker had placed a double agent named Nyxeris in her employ to monitor her progress and, if possible, to kill her. When Shepard obtained certain information from Cerberus, the Commander and Liara at last tracked the Broker to its ship and confronted it in person. (Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker)

The Shadow Broker was revealed to be a member of a pre-spaceflight race called the yahg. Liara reasoned that since the yahg had not been discovered until 2125 CE while the Broker's ship was considerably older, this yahg had usurped the original Broker years before and run the organization ever since. Records aboard the ship told the story: after the yahg homeworld of Parnack was discovered and then declared off-limits, the original Broker had a yahg abducted for study. The captive proved highly intelligent and adaptable, killed the operative monitoring him, assumed that operative's identity to rise through the ranks, and then turned on the Broker himself, taking over the role and maintaining the organization for the following six decades. (Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker)

Liara T'Soni's succession#

At some point during his reign, the yahg Broker became aware of the Reapers and the true nature of the Collectors, and Liara surmised that his dealings with the Collectors had been a selfish and ill-conceived bid to ensure his own survival from the coming genocide. He was never given the chance to pursue those plans. Liara, Shepard, and a third companion battled the Broker in his own office, and after extensive teamwork they turned his own kinetic technology against him, destroying him in a fiery explosion. (Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker)

With the yahg dead and the few operatives aware of his true identity already eliminated, Liara T'Soni stepped into the role of Shadow Broker herself, taking over without anyone in the organization suspecting the transition. She was well aware of the power at her disposal, capable of starting a war within minutes, but vowed not to abuse it and to turn the Broker's resources toward the fight against the Reapers. When Cerberus later attempted to seize the operation before the Reaper invasion of 2186, Liara chose to crash the Broker's ship rather than surrender it, relocating her equipment aboard the Normandy SR-2 and continuing her work in support of the war. (Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker; Mass Effect 3)

Agents and enforcers#

The Shadow Broker maintained a private army to carry out operations requiring force, its troops clad in black and white armor and bearing the Broker's insignia, a triangular red emblem. Its network of agents and intermediaries spanned the galaxy and included the volus financier Barla Von, the asari Spectre Tela Vasir, the double agent Nyxeris, and the enforcer Tazzik. The drell Feron and the club owner Fist were among its former agents, and the Broker also relied on hirelings, among them mercenaries and the krogan Urdnot Wrex, to do work it preferred not to trace back to itself. (Mass Effect; Mass Effect: Redemption; Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker)